Baseball Must Follow Nfl's Lead When It Comes To 'Kicking' Game

The National Football League, that garden of honor and piety, passes along an instant opinion on what should be done with baseball's confessed drug users. Kick 'em out of the game.

That's what the NFL did two years ago to Ross Browner and Pete Johnson of Cincinnati, both of whom had testified under immunity in a drug trial.

Browner and Johnson were unable to play the first four games of 1984, which is a quarter of the NFL season. Translated to baseball, that would be 40 games.

If Peter Ueberroth can ignore the glee and eagerness with which the publicity machinery of the NFL sped to us a copy of Pete Rozelle's 1983 decision, baseball's commissioner can find much to use to make a case for similar action.

Football's argument, under Rozelle's name, went like this:

''NFL players occupy a unique position in the eyes of the public. They are objects of admiration and emulation by countless fans, particularly young people. Involvement with illegal drugs poses numerous risks to the integrity of professional football and the public's confidence in it.

''Thus every player must adhere to certain standards of personal conduct both on and off the field. Every player agrees by his employment contract not to engage in activities detrimental to the sport. . . . Players who have sought rehabilitative treatment and whose drug problems have not entangled them in the criminal justice system have enjoyed limited amnesty despite their avowed past use of illegal substances. The NFL cannot, however, afford to condone -- or convey any indication that it condones -- illegal drug involvement.''

If we cut through the posturing and the gibberish, Rozelle said that anyone who ends up in court because of drugs loses his job.

None of this means that football is today any more drug free than baseball. It may be simply that football players avoid snorting with friends these days, as certainly baseball players will from now on. If no other lesson emerges from the agonizing confessions in Pittsburgh, athletes must now know that you can't trust a pal with a straw up his nose.

The point being made by the NFL is that transgressors must be punished to keep faith with the world.

Something has to be done with baseball's snitches, the admitted drug users who have dropped names, lost friends and made headlines in court

The law has sent them home without malice, happy to have oiled justice along its tortuous route once again. Legally, Keith Hernandez can now proceed merrily into the World Series with the Mets. Dave Parker can come to the plate with Pete Rose in scoring position and feel no shame that he is in the same arena, never mind on the same planet, with Rose.

If baseball were to follow football's example, every active player on the witness stand would be barred from the game and have to petition to come back. Until then, they would be unpaid, unpracticed and uninvolved with their teams or the game itself.

That isn't slamming the door on their lives, it is closing it softly and leaving it unlocked.

They deserve worse. They ought to be barred from baseball forever for violating not themselves or consenting friends but the soul of sports.

Sports has value beyond entertainment, beyond escapism. The lessons of games enrich our lives. We see in the rules of play the necessary order of existence. We witness the cooperation of individuals for the good of all. We understand fair play and civilized competition. We imitate the discipline required to achieve goals.

We must believe that the athletes who play games at the highest level have the highest regard for the foundation on which our allegience is based.

I've said this before. Forgive the redundancy. A man needs to be sure of three things in this life. That his wife is faithful, his minister is holy and his shortstop is clean.